Scientists baffled as unexplained green light appears in the sky during thunderstorm

'It’s not something we’ve ever seen before'

A strange green light flashing across the sky has baffled local residents and led one expert to say he had seen nothing like it before.

The video was shot in West Australia during an intense thunderstorm. As local resident Leigh Stevens looked on, a strange green light – accompanied by an equally unexplained sound – flashed bright across the sky.

"WTF is that," Stephens wrote. "Taken last night during electrical storm from our back yard."

And experts agreed that the phenomenon was like nothing they had seen before, according to the West Australian, which reported on the strange video.

“It’s not something we’ve ever seen before,” Neil Bennett from the Bureau of Meteorology said, according to the newspaper. “We don’t think it (the green light) is part of the thunderstorm, we think it’s a reflection of something on the ground, rather than coming from the clouds.”

Local residents commented on the video, insisting that they had also seen the phenomenon.

"Remember that night I saw something exactly like this, but wasn’t raining and no thunder the sky kept flashing," wrote one. "Constantly for about a good hour or so."

Under the video, some speculated that it was the reflection of some sort of device on the ground, shining into the sky. That helped explain the noise that can be heard, they said, as well as the fact the light seems sometimes to distort into recognisable shapes.

Others claimed it was an effect of the weather, with the light emerging as energy from the same electrical storm that can be seen flashing through the rest of the video.

Yet more, of course, suggested that it might be proof of aliens. But there is no suggestion that the light was extraterrestrial in origin.